Zero Tolerance (14 page)

But Ms. Lin would have been correct in her belief that Sierra and Luke couldn't be trusted.

It was one of those warm end-of-January days. Last week's snow was already melting off the lawns, and kids were outdoors for lunch recess without bothering with jackets.

“We could go outside for a while,” Luke said. “She's not going to notice when we come back.”

“We'd better not,” Sierra said. “She's been so nice.” She wasn't going to betray Mrs. Saunders, especially now, after what she had done to Ms. Lin and how it had turned out.

Colin waved to her but didn't come over to give her any boycott bulletins. Then, as she was about to head out with her tray, he appeared in front of her, his face a bit wary. Probably he didn't want to be drawn into conversation with Luke.

“Jolene joined us, too. So the trip's definitely off unless Besser can talk the rest of them out of it at rehearsal tomorrow morning. Lydgate would go with seven, but he can't possibly go with fewer than that.”

“La-la-la-la-la-la!” Luke sang in a loud, rude falsetto. “Sounds to me like you'll all be doing the world a big fat favor not to inflict your singing on it.”

“Just ignore him,” Sierra said to Colin. Was Luke making fun of Colin for being a boy in choir, as if choir were more of a girl thing? Luke shouldn't talk: he didn't do
anything
except get in fights and cuss in front of teachers.

She tried to give Colin a smile that was more than just a thank-you-for-being-my-hero smile; she wanted it to be a please-like-me-as-much-as-I-like-you smile. But she wasn't able to give him her best smile in front of Luke.

*   *   *

“Why are you so mean to everybody?” she asked Luke as they carried their trays down the hall to the office.

“I'm not mean to everybody. Just to
almost
everybody.”

“Who
aren't
you mean to?”

“I'm not mean to you.”

“Anymore. Except you still call me Shep-turd. You said you wouldn't, but you still do.”

“Aw, it's kind of a—what do you call it?—a pet name. Like Snookums.”

“Snookums?”

“Yeah. Sierra Snookums Shep-turd. I like it.”

She was giggling as they entered the office but stopped when she saw Mr. Besser deep in conversation with Mrs. Saunders. He shot Sierra a piercing look that made her sure that he knew. He might not be ready to confront her yet, but he knew.

Or maybe that was just her guilt speaking?

It didn't help that she felt a blush rising up from her chest to her neck to her face.

That afternoon, she finished reading the last pages of Anne Frank's diary. When she read the afterword, telling how Anne had died at Auschwitz, her eyes stung with tears. She would never complain about anything in her life ever again, not even if she was expelled or sentenced to a juvenile detention center for forgery. Nothing that happened to her could be as wrong and terrible as what had happened to Anne Frank.

“You're crying over a book?” Luke asked her.

Sierra nodded. She held it up so he could see the cover. “Didn't you ever cry over a book? Or a movie?”

“Nope. It makes me mad when people try to make me cry. I won't give them the satisfaction. Never would.”

“Even when you were little?”

“Even when I was little. All right, no. I did cry when Bambi's mother died. But my dad said big boys don't cry, so I stopped.”

“How old were you?”

“Three? Or four?”

Sierra felt a pang of sadness for little boy Luke, not even allowed to cry over Bambi's mother.

“But, anyway,” she said, “with Anne Frank, it's not like Anne is trying to make anybody cry. You cry because of what
happened
to Anne, and that's just a fact.”

She paused.

“How long is your suspension this time?”

“Three days.”

Sierra didn't think she should tell Luke that she was glad he had been suspended again. She didn't want to give him the wrong idea.

But she was glad. She really was.

*   *   *

After school the Channel 9 van was there, but no reporters from any other stations.

“Sierra!”

The blond reporter felt like an old friend now.

Sierra hadn't realized how much she had missed the daily TV interviews until she felt the camera trained on her face once more to catch her every fleeting expression.

The world did care what happened to her.

“Sierra, the expulsion hearing is on Friday. That's just two days away. What do you think the superintendent will rule in your case?”

“I think I'll get to stay.”

Actually, she had no idea, but she knew that was what her father would want her to say.

“Even though school policy explicitly states that any possession of any weapon on school grounds for any reason means automatic expulsion?”

Sierra nodded. “It just doesn't make sense to expel someone for a mistake.”

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

“There have been some voices raised in your support over the last few days. Eight teachers signed the school petition protesting the principal's decision. And just this morning, in the
Denver Post
, a member of the school staff wrote a letter sharply critical of the principal's actions.”

Sierra tried to keep her cheeks from flushing as they had before.

Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of Colin leaving the school. Maybe he would come over and rescue her yet again by telling the blond reporter about the choir trip boycott.

Until then, she had to make some reply.

“I think it's great that people are speaking out.”

Colin was with someone, a girl who looked like Celeste. It
was
Celeste.

Maybe he was trying to talk her into joining the boycott, speaking softly in his intense, persuasive way. Even smug, self-righteous Celeste wouldn't be able to hold out against an appeal made in Colin's low voice, the direct gaze of Colin's gray eyes.

They were coming down the front steps of the school.

They were still talking.

He was holding her hand.

 

30

 

Sierra had no idea what else the blond reporter asked or what else she replied.

Colin and Celeste came closer. They had stopped to watch her being interviewed.

Five minutes ago Sierra would have been glad to have Celeste see her back in the media spotlight. Celeste might not think Sierra had suffered an outrageous injustice, but obviously 9NEWS did.

Now she didn't care anymore if she was expelled. She
wanted
to be expelled, and the sooner the better, so that she would never have to spend another minute of her life at Longwood Middle School. Whatever her father said about fruits and nuts, she was going to transfer to Beautiful Mountain. She would tell her mother to call them tomorrow. Or they could stop by the school on the way home to tell Jackie in person.

Colin and
Celeste
?

Celeste and
Colin
?

A sharp knife of heartbreak and humiliation—much sharper than her mother's apple-cutting knife—stabbed itself into Sierra's heart.

“I know it's tough,” she heard the reporter say. “Just remember, Sierra, you have a lot of supporters around the state of Colorado who are out there cheering for you.”

The interview was over.

Colin and Celeste had walked on. At Celeste's urging? Did Celeste suspect Sierra's crush on Colin? Sierra had taken such pains to hide her feelings from Celeste. If Celeste had known, would it have made any difference? Or would it only have made this moment that much more excruciating?

Sierra stumbled toward her mother's car.

“What is it? What happened?”

Sitting beside her mother in the front seat, Sierra leaned her head against the glass of the window, unable to let her mother's worried eyes probe her face.

“What did they do to you? Was it Mr. Besser? Or one of the other kids in suspension? Tell me. You have to tell me, or I'm going to march into the office right now and find out myself.”

“Nothing happened!”

“What do you mean, nothing happened? This is cruel, what they're doing to you, cruel. I'm going in there and telling Mr. Besser that enough is enough.”

“No! Don't go in there. There's nothing anyone can do, or Daddy would have already done it.”

“Actually, your father called me just now, and told me there have been some developments, there
is
something he can do. But I'm not willing to wait until that charade of a hearing. Do you want to wait here, or do you want to come in with me?”

Her mother had already unbuckled her seatbelt.

“Mom. This. Has. Nothing. To. Do. With. That.”

“Then what does it … Oh.” Her mother sighed and said just one word: “Colin.”

Sierra didn't bother to tell her mother that she was right.

“Okay, honey, let's just go, then.” Her mother rebuckled her seatbelt and turned the key in the ignition. “Do you want to stop for ice cream on the way home?”

“Ice cream?”

“It actually does help. In these situations. Trust me on this one.”

*   *   *

“You
knew
?” Sierra shrieked at Em, who was sitting next to her on her bed.

Em clapped her hands over her ears. Cornflake jumped off Sierra's lap and streaked away.

As soon as they had gotten home from the ice cream parlor, Sierra had called Em: “It's something terrible. Can you come over right now?”

Ten minutes later, Em was there, perched on Sierra's bed behind Sierra's closed door. But when Sierra blurted out, “Colin likes Celeste,” Em's face failed to register the shock Sierra had expected.

“You knew, and you didn't tell me? You just let me keep on liking him? And talking about him? And all the while—”

“It wasn't like that. I didn't know until fifth period today. I sort of suspected yesterday, but it wasn't until—”

“What made you suspect yesterday?”

It was sick, but she couldn't help herself, she had to hear Em tell her, with Em's famous attention to every tiny detail.

“Okay. So in French class? Before Madame Moline began? They were talking together. You know how she sits on the other side of him from where you sit. They were talking about you.”

“About me.” Sierra swallowed hard. “Who said something first?”

“Colin.”

Oh, Colin …

“He said to Celeste, ‘I think you should join the boycott.'”

“How did he look when he said it?”

Not that she needed to ask. Em would tell her anyway.

“His voice was really quiet and intense, you know how he is, like he's soooo serious, like what he's saying matters to him soooo much.”

Yes, Sierra knew exactly how Colin was.

“And she said, ‘But we all worked so hard to get this. We
earned
this.' And he said, ‘Sierra earned it, too.'”

Was it possible to die of love? Of love for a boy who was holding the hand of your friend?

“And she said, ‘I feel terrible about Sierra, too.'”

Did
she feel so terrible? If she did, Sierra certainly hadn't noticed it.

“But then she said, ‘Colin, I think it's great what you're trying to do for Sierra, but I'm sorry, this trip, it just means so much to me to get to go, and now it's all
ruined
.'”

Sierra helped out with the story, even though she hadn't been there. “And then she had tears in her eyes, actual tears, not making her eyes look red and puffy, but making them look big and shiny, and there was one tear glistening in her eyelashes.”

“You're good,” Em said admiringly to Sierra. “You really are good. Yes! And then he reached over…”

Could Sierra stand to hear the rest?

“And he put his hand on hers. Sort of like, to comfort her. And he said, ‘I know it's disappointing. I'm disappointed, too.'”

“And then he forgot to take his hand away,” Sierra interjected.

“Yeah. He kind of left it there. And he said, ‘I wish I could convince you. Are you going to be around after school today?' And she nodded and said, and her voice was kind of shaky, ‘I could meet you by the tree.'”

The huge oak tree on the school's front lawn was the school's designated meeting place.

“And then Madame Moline said, ‘
Bonjour, mes enfants!
' And class began.”

“So what about today? What happened today?”

“When they came into French class—” Em began.

“He was holding her hand,” Sierra finished the sentence.

“Yeah.”

“But at lunch today, during 4A, he told me Jolene had joined the boycott,” Sierra said. “He didn't say Celeste had joined it.”

“Maybe he's still trying to talk her into it, and now she'll join because she likes Colin so much.”

“When she wouldn't do it for me,” Sierra said. Her mouth tasted of bitterness, as if she had swallowed a huge mouthful of unripe plum.

“Well,” she made herself say, “Colin has a right to like anybody he wants. If he wants to like Celeste, he has a right to like Celeste. And it wasn't as if I ever told Celeste I liked Colin. So she has a right to like Colin, too.”

She supposed that was even true. But right now she was too tired—too profoundly weary and heartsick—to care.

Except that she did care.

Oh, Colin!

 

31

 

Sierra was in bed for the night, half asleep, when her father got home. It wasn't that late, a bit past nine o'clock, but she was too drained from her day to start a new book or watch anything on TV. She didn't even want to watch herself on TV. No, she
especially
didn't want to watch herself on TV.